i was kind of hoping it was possibly scottish , it certainly is an aged weight , bought at a bootsale in Perth Scotland , i have a number of pieces of Monart and the green shade matches perfectly some of the older pieces i have ,that coupled with the black and aventurine got me quite excited lol . it does have a minor imperfection on the outer which although is not a crack it can be described as a bruise that is only visable under certain angles .

Sometimes paperweights like this are just one off studio weights using colour that has been left on the marver, from another project. Rather like "end of day" but not necessarily made at the end of the day. Studio glassmakers have to be resourceful and try not to throw anything away. Although I doubt this originated from my studio, it could quite easily have done so.

I can imagine a scenario where I would have been making a series of work, perhaps landscapes, using similar colours. There might be some time between pieces for an assistant to make a paperweight with the excess colour. You can see from the cloudiness below the colour that the glass has been marvered on a less than clean marver. However, the quality of the finishing suggests that it came from a reasonably sized studio or factory, because they had a flat- bed and a lathe and someone experienced in cold work. The punty has been ground out with a carborundum or possibly sandstone wheel, and this requires a degree of skill not always found in smaller studios.

These are some of the tell-tale indicators, but they won't explain where it came from.

While I have always endeavoured to ensure that every piece that leaves my studion is signed, many makers do not sign every piece.There are lots of reasons for this. In the case of a paperweight like this, it's a bit like home made jam. If you made some jam and give it to the local jumble sale, you never used to label it with a complete provenance and history (although probably nowadays the HSE insist you do!) You just write "strawberry" on it to distinguish it from "raspberry".

While I understand that later on, people are confused as to who the maker is, I do think it is important to keep things in perspective. There are good reasons for signing, but there can be reasons against.

I have had a number of excellent students on my half day courses, who have produced work of this quality, and for obvious reasons, always ensure that they are signed with the student's name!

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And I do have some pieces of your work which are not signed, because you considered them to be less than prefect, whereas I consider them to be quite delightful! So I think we need to be aware that sometimes an artist may not sign a piece, simply because they do not consider it a good enough example of their work for them to 'own' it, while a collector may find it a perfectly acceptable piece of art glass (or glass art! ) You artists can be such perfectionists!